Being Adam Golightly by Adam Golightly

Author:Adam Golightly
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780723174
Publisher: Short Books

26.

WINDOWS ON HELEN’S WORLD

Holly: If you could say one more thing to Helen, what would it be?

Holly is a daftly insensitive but well-meaningly crass cousin. My answer comes straight from the heart, surprising me and shocking her:

Me: I’d tell Helen how much better I understood her job, how good she was at it and how loved, valued and respected she was by so many of those with whom she worked.

Holly looks at me, wide-eyed:

Holly: Is that it? What about that you loved her, the kids, how you are coping? Her work? Reeeeaaally?

Me: Really.

I’m suddenly tired of the conversation and reach for another egg-and-cress sandwich. Why do these taste so much better at funerals? My aunt Grace, aged 93, is the last of my mum’s nine siblings to pass.

All 10 lived heartily well into their 80s, except Uncle Fred, whose health one assumed was fine until he crashed to earth in his Lancaster bomber aged 21. So I’m here with regret but no grief. Helen’s death in her 40s has created a new benchmark that has anything above 60 looking like a good innings.

With the six siblings on my father’s side long gone, it truly is the end of an era as the aunts and uncles who were so much a part of my life are now absent. With what I suspect is a common sense of regret, I wish I had spoken to some of them about our family history before they died, not least my own mum who may not have been certain what day it was at the end but could provide forensic detail about the distant past.

Later, on the long drive south, I play back and unpick Holly’s question and my unconsidered reply. Helen and I were always so close, never more so than in the last two years. My time at her bedside as she slipped away meant that, when she died, there really was nothing unsaid between us, or so I’d thought at the time.

It was only when preparing her eulogy that I had been prompted to consider her career as never before. I remember being bowled over by some of the quotes from her colleagues, including Dame Fiona Reynolds, formerly of the National Trust:

Fiona R: Helen was so principled and clear; she always had something valuable to say and she carried the flame of the Trust’s core purpose so strongly.

There had been people of influence and standing at her funeral who’d worked with Helen professionally. Some of these I had not even known she knew, never mind respected her well enough to come to her funeral. After the service I greeted everyone, including a tall, distinctly patrician gentleman introducing himself:

Man (hand outstretched): Geordie.

I was momentarily tempted to ask whether he’d travelled down from the north-east that day, to thank him if so, but instinct stopped me. Later from Helen’s boss I had confirmation that the instinct was a good ’un, Geordie was better known as George, Earl of Carnarvon and owner of the fabulous Highclere Castle whose upkeep has been so helped by its fame as Downton Abbey.

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